.NET, Xamarin, and mobile software development

A BLOG BY DAN HERMES

Analysis Is Changing with Mobile

23 October 2014No Comment

Software analysis changes with the times, and in these times that means going mobile. The first concept to be aware of is responsive design, the ability of an app or website to adapt to the size of the device it is viewed from. Without it, sites and apps look teeny-tiny on a phone and require a navigation approach called “squint and scroll”. The most important technology decision to be made in the building of a mobile app is: Do we go with a mobile web app, which is an HTML5 app that runs in a browser on the phone, or go truly native? Native apps, which compile and run on the local OS, such as Android or iOS, are more performant and offer a better user experience. However, there are certain cases where mobile web apps are just fine, such as websites and very simple apps (remember, these are running inside a browser, like Safari). Cross-platform is the next key topic. Most apps need to perform equally well on iOS, Android, and increasingly, Windows Phone. Our native cross-platform development tool of choice is Xamarin, which allows us to build once then customize for each platform, rather than building from scratch with each OS. I covered all these topics and more in my talk this Fall at Project Summit & Business Analyst World conference in Boston.